


Life is a Puzzle

by The_romantic_frypan



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Action Scenes, Highschool AU, Mild Cursing, Multi, Slow Burn, and time, but also a superpower au, homophobia mention, i just like mixing stuff up okay, im learning here so gimme a break, lots of time, roman is mean at the start but character arcs yknow, sorry im bad at tags but i can write a bit better i promise, there will be both angst and fluff worry not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_romantic_frypan/pseuds/The_romantic_frypan
Summary: A group of four highschool kids come to an interesting discovery after a series of very awkward events.





	Life is a Puzzle

Virgil had a predicament. It wasn’t the biggest problem in the world, perhaps, what with the social and political world crumbling a little more every day, but he had promised his parents that he would try to validate his own issues more. So he went over it in his head, trying to allow his own issues to be at the front of his mind without letting them completely overtake his sanity.

The problem was that he had too many problems. He had tried to keep as low a profile as possible so he could survive his senior years of high school, but nothing seemed to want to go right. And somehow, he had landed himself in detention with a group of boys that only meant trouble for him, and not quite in the way you might think, because this was an… internal crisis. To put it simply. 

He had earned himself a detention because of the same old plague that he always put up with. Anxiety. It was all because his stupid anxiety made him stumble over his words if he tried to talk to someone, so his only coping mechanism had become a sarcastic and nonchalant façade. It was all because his stupid biology teacher had assigned pair work for their experiment that day. It was all because he had bad enough luck to be landed with the- uh, most annoying boy in school. It was all because Roman Kingston couldn’t shut his stupid mouth while Virgil was trying to do the work. It was all because Roman accidentally knocked over the Bunsen Burner when Virgil got angry that he wouldn’t stop talking. It was all because another boy, Patton, tried to calm Virgil down, but ended up just getting detention as well, and even his lab partner, whose only involvement was to try and stop Patton from leaving their table, got detention.  
And so that was why Virgil was sitting at a desk, trying to avoid the gaze of Roman Kingston, Patton Harte, and Logan Quinn, all of whom he felt infinitely inferior to. And he knew that they ALL blamed him. ‘Whoops.’

Roman couldn’t believe it. Mr Picani hadn’t even let him complete the detention another time, when he had even offered to do double time! Missing even a single rehearsal was detrimental to his performance, and the school play was only a few weeks away! But no, apparently Roman’s future in theatre was less important than making up for an accident that was hardly his fault anyway! Of course, he bet anything that smug little Virgil Sanders blamed him, but he was only as guilty as the sarcastic emo was himself. 

Roman sighed. At least it wasn’t a big rehearsal. He could catch up with one of the other main cast members later on. But it was still frustrating. He had worked hard to get where he was today, especially in his younger acting career. Getting called ‘gay’ as an insult all through middle school just because he liked to act was hard on Roman’s self esteem, especially when he was, in fact, gay, but didn’t want to say so because it was always used as a hurtful stereotype. But now he was older, and after coming out to his parents with positive reciprocation, he had begun to absolutely *flaunt* the fact. His rainbows and glitter outshined the homophobic bullies and he entered his senior year a respected and popular theatre gay who didn’t take shit from anybody. And no-one gave him any, because he threw an okay punch, too. 

As his mind wandered, Roman found himself glancing over at the other members of their small party of detentionees. He had run into Virgil quite a few times over the years, and while the smaller boy never attacked him with the common weaponry that bullies usually wielded, Roman always felt drained after even talking with him. Virgil seemed to put up walls of witty sarcasm before even beginning to talk to anyone, and it made him someone that Roman considered very, very frustrating. 

The other boys he hadn’t talked to as much, but he knew them well enough to be acquaintances. Patton Harte was known by almost everyone in the school at this point, and even the teachers who didn’t teach him knew him by name and reputation. His popularity wasn’t even because he played a million and two sports, or even because he was super kind and generous, although those were attributes that anyone who knew him knew he had in copious amounts. The reason he was so popular was that he was happy. All the time. He greeted every person he met with a beaming smile, and never seemed to cease being bubbly and excited about everything he ever did. He was even only in this detention room because he had been trying to calm Virgil into a more civil way of acting when the little stormcloud got angry. Roman wondered if Patton was actually a robot at times.

Then there was Logan Quinn, the other end of Patton’s spectrum, it would seem. He was a quiet and seemingly introverted kid who hardly spoke during class except to ask questions, and kept almost completely to himself. He wore collared shirts to school, and sometimes even ties, which basically held up a huge sign that read, ‘I’M A GIANT NERD’ to Roman’s mind. Logan was top of the class, but he still didn’t get much attention out of it, which seemed to be the way he liked things. In middle school his grades had baffled the other students, but now it was just common knowledge. No-one really bothered Logan, as he shut bullies down quite quickly, countering everything they said with a statement that shocked them long enough for him to slip away. He was a genius kid.  
Time passed as slowly as if it were tar, and Roman noticed them all beginning to fidget. Patton began to twirl his curly hair around one finger, and Logan fiddled with his tie. Roman himself found he was bouncing his foot, but Virgil was the most noticeable. His incessant tapping at the table was beginning to drive Roman mad. Thankfully, Patton spoke up and snapped everyone out of the boredom.

“So, its, um, nice to meet you all. I know we are in detention together, but its boring just sitting here without talking or something. I’m Patton, but you can call me Pat!” 

“Well, it’s better than sitting in silence for an hour. I’m Virgil.” Roman glanced at the smaller boy in confusion. He hadn’t thought that he would speak up first.

“And I’m Roman. I can’t believe the teachers just left us here to do nothing. It’s quite boring, isn’t it?” Roman sighed. “I even missed my rehearsal.”

“Rehearsal? Oh, are you in the play?”

“Yes, I’m acting the Prince part! Have you seen the posters around school?”

“Yeah, I saw! I hadn’t considered it before, but I might come watch you! It sounds like a very cool play!” Patton beamed at Roman. He really was a natural people-pleaser.

They paused the conversation, not quite knowing what to say next. Logan sighed from his seat a little way back from the others.

“I suppose I’ll introduce myself as well, then. Logan Quinn. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” 

He seemed to consider something for a second as Patton greeted him in turn, then he picked up his bag and shifted to a desk closer to the others, but still a fair enough distance that he wasn’t close to any of them in particular. 

The group began to hesitantly talk to each other about their different interests, and soon they appeared to warm up to each other. Patton was excited to see that even Virgil was joining in, making smart remarks here and there, and sometimes even adding his own information to the discussion. He watched the other kids in his class sometimes, and Virgil always seemed to keep to himself, as well as Logan. He often worried about including them in group activities, but he usually ended up with some kids that wanted to be in his group because he was popular. His reputation had its ups and downs. 

In reality, no-one really revealed much about themselves in the conversation, but at least Roman could talk for ages about his work in the play. Virgil added some things he knew about the backstage, as he sometimes helped out the art teachers in painting props and backgrounds. The conversation mostly revolved around the play and school subjects after that, with a bit of complaining from three of them about the difficulties of the term’s math unit, and Logan offering to assist them with the formulas. They all turned him down initially, making excuses as to why they could work on their own, but Patton knew it was probably because Logan was a bit intimidating when it came to smarts, and they all were too afraid to show him how incompetent they were in comparison. But of course, he couldn’t be that mean. Patton assured himself that Logan would be a fine tutor, but he just wanted to work it out himself. 

They talked for a while more, and soon the conversation took a different route. 

“So, who wants to know about the time that I almost fell off a cliff on a camp in sixth grade?” Roman asked, eyes alight with mischief. Patton giggled, because people always looked so cute when they wanted to talk about their interests, and Roman was so shameless about his emotions that it was endlessly endearing. 

“Uh, maybe not, Sir Risk-a-Lot.” Virgil cut in, seeming a bit agitated.

“What? Why? Its just about how I saved-”

“I said, no. Can we talk about something else? Another story, I dunno. Anything but that.”

Patton saw Virgil’s fear rising rapidly. “Roman, maybe-”

“But it’s not bad! I have lots of daring adventures and-”

“Stop, Kingston, I mean it.”

“Why are you so mad? I mean its just a story, and-”

“I said STOP!”

The room fell silent at Virgil’s last word, as it blasted a wave of force into a few desks to Roman’s right, which skidded loudly across the floor for a metre or two. That was… not quite what Patton had expected. 

Virgil thought for a second that maybe he just said it powerfully, but then he saw Logan’s expression was just as shocked as the others, when he had been calm and collected the entire time until this point. That told the whole story with one look, and Virgil knew he had let slip. He ran for the door, his brain completely overcome by a flight response, but his worst fear came true and the door was locked. He spun around, preparing his mind for the worst. 

“Please don’t freak out!”

He held his hands out in caution as the three stared at him blankly for a few more seconds. Roman spoke up first.

“Oh. My. God. You too?!”

“I can explain, I swear! I just- Wait, what?”

Virgil’s mind filled with a fog of confusion that he’d never felt before after revealing his power. Usually people screamed, or fled, or got somewhat scared, but these boys continued to just, stare at him, and what on earth did Kingston mean?! 

“You can, what was that, like a sonic blast? That’s too cool!”

“You- you aren’t freaked out?”

“Well, yeah, that was weird, but I thought I was the only one who was weird!”

“Wait, you mean you can do that too?!”

“Er, not exactly.”

Roman outstretched his hand, and a small orange flame lit up the centre of his palm. He made it grow to the size of a golf ball, then closed his hand and it disappeared. 

“Wow!” Virgil turned to see that Patton was watching intently, but didn’t seem to be fazed. Logan was back to cool and collected. 

“You guys… aren’t weirded out?”

“Well, I don’t know about Logan here, but…” Patton reached out his hand, which glowed faintly blue, and the desks that Virgil had blown over began to pick themselves up. 

“Interesting. Sonic abilities, pyrokinesis, and telekinesis? I never thought I’d see so much mutation in one room.”

Roman raised an eyebrow at Logan. “I don’t know whether to be offended or not. And what about you, smarty pants? Just not fazed that we have powers and you don’t?”

As Virgil watched, it seemed like Logan never moved at all, that he just suddenly appeared beside Roman. “I’m afraid your hypothesis would prove incorrect. I also possess these ‘powers’ as you call them. Of course, none of our mutations seem to share similarity. I shall look into that.”

Virgil sat down, processing all the things that had played out in the last five minutes. They all had these… powers? And had somehow gotten into in the same class, and all got in trouble at the same time, and ended up in the exact same detention room? The odds were-

“Infinitesimal!” 

“What?”

Patton looked up, surprised. “Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud?” He laughed a little. “I don’t mean to snoop, and I usually am better at tuning others out, but I guess your thoughts were a little too loud for me to ignore, so I, uh, I heard the tail end of what you were saying.”

Virgil raised his eyebrows, a little bit shocked. “Oh. So you can read minds?”

“Well, sorta. Its more like I can hear thoughts as if they were just normal speech, most of the time. But if I do certain exercises now and again, I can usually stop the thoughts coming from everyone so that I can concentrate. But your thought must have just been very… loud, is the only word I can think to describe it. I sometimes finish the thoughts in my head when that happens, because it usually seems like its one of my own and my brain finishes it for the other person.”

“Oh. What does that word mean, by the way?”

Patton smiles in a way that Virgil hadn’t expected to see on him, kind of cheeky, or even mischievous. “Well, Logan and I used to chat every now and again, and it sort of became an inside joke.”

Logan already had his head in his hand, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache, which Virgil assumed Patton could possibly be, at times, and if he wanted to. “Patton, I’ve said before, it was a mistake that could easily have been made, especially at the rate that I studied vocabulary back then, I obviously mistook one definition for another. Must you really continue to plague me with recollections of my failure?”

“Aw, Logan, its not a failure until you let it get to ya. What happened was that Logan was studying advanced vocab with Ms Jenkins, and-”

“Ew, I hated her. Was this grade seven?”

“Yeah he was in special classes back then, so I talked to him sometimes at lunch. Anyway, he accidentally mixed up a definition, and used ‘infinitesimal’ to mean very big, but it actually means very small. So every now and again its funny when I use it, because it reminds him of that.”

Virgil scoffed. “Wow, Patton, that’s harsh. Didn’t know you were a bully.” 

Patton’s face was momentarily taken over with confusion, until he saw Virgil’s smirk. He mirrored it with his own mischievous grin. 

“Oh, but I would never. He loves me anyway, don’t you, Lo?”

“Patton, I don’t understand the point of that question. We were merely acquaintanced for a few months in younger years, I do not believe that equates to any stronger platonic bond than a mutual recognition of one another, and perhaps a recollection of a few, as you say, ‘inside jokes.’”

Patton picked up a pencil that Logan had on his desk next to a journal he had been scrawling in just before. “Guess you kinda missed the ‘point’ there a bit, Lo.”

Patton grinned at his joke as the others groaned and rolled their eyes. Logan let himself smile a little but quickly resumed his blank expression as he checked his wristwatch. 

“It appears that we do not have much longer to discuss any of these discoveries, but perhaps we could exchange contact information? This may help us each with our own abilities if we had a way to discuss it with others with similar abilities?”

“That’s a great idea!”

“Wait, I’ve got a better idea.” Roman took his phone out from his pocket. “Do all of you have Facebook?” Patton and Logan nodded.

“Yeah, but I never use it.” 

“That’s fine, Mr dark and brooding, as long as you have messenger.”

“Oh, a groupchat. Yeah, that’s easier, actually. I cant believe you actually had a good idea for once.”

“I have *plenty* of good ideas, thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this is off to an okay start! This is my first big writing project in a while so lets hope i can get some longer chapters out sooner rather than later. Thx for reading <3


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